


Past the Friends With Benefits Stage

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, The Sentinel Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21643807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: Influenced by the spirit of the Christmas season (Joel’s eggnog, mainly) Blair makes Jim an offer.
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56
Collections: 2019 'The Sentinel Secret Santa' - Gift Exchange





	Past the Friends With Benefits Stage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JKlog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JKlog/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, JKlog!

Past The Friends With Benefits Stage

There was, of course, no parking spot anywhere close to home, so Blair parked on the small lot on Lambert and sprinted for 852 Prospect and the loft in a late November downpour.

Jim looked up as he walked in. “I thought you were going to crash at Ryan’s place.”

“Yeah,” Blair said, hanging up his coat and making the straightest possible line for the linen closet and some warm, dry towels. “But that was before he converted to the Church of Sulloway.”

Jim, all stretched out on the couch in his sock feet and looking very comfortable, waved the remote with the aim of silencing the tv and gave Blair all of his (unnecessarily amused) attention. Blair meanwhile wrapped his dripping hair in a towel and tried to regain a sense of humor and proportion.

“I’ve only met Ryan a couple of times, but he didn’t strike me as the religious type.”

Blair made a small, frustrated noise behind the shelter of the towel, before collapsing into an armchair.

“Frank Sulloway is a psychologist who’s written a book positing that birth order affects personality, and okay, not my field, but what I’ve heard of his work even from personal observation… well, I’d have to read it, and like I said, not my field, but it’s bullshit.”

“So Ryan and you had a …robust academic discussion?” Jim was still looking amused, and also dry and warm. 

Blair decided that sitting down and steaming in more ways than one wasn’t working for him and instead headed for the kitchen to fill his kettle and set it on the stove top. Tea. Something warm and calming to soothe ruffled tempers and unsatisfied libidos. “Exceedingly robust,” Blair muttered, and considered his tea selections.

“You two usually get along.”

“Yeah, well obviously we tripped each other’s wires on this one, and I’m sure we’ll get along just fine after we cool off, but first we have to cool off.”

“Well, the weather outside should certainly help that,” Jim said, and turned his attention back to the tv once more. That was fine by Blair because he wanted to vent, up to a point, but past a point he’d have to explain to Jim just why he felt so ruffled, and he wasn’t entirely sure of the answer himself. It had been such a stupid argument.

He poured his tea and returned to the chair to stretch out and sulk. He liked Ryan, he was a good friend, but he enjoyed armchair psychoanalysis to an obnoxious degree. (Was it armchair psychoanalysis when it was literally from an armchair but the person in question was actually qualified? Blair decided it was because… well. Just because Ryan was wrong for a start.)

Blair eyed Jim over the rim of his cup, reviewing what he knew about Jim in the light of what Ryan thought he knew about him. Conscientious – yes, Jim was that. And okay, maybe not that open to new ideas, but not closed to them either. And Ryan knew absolutely nothing about how agreeable Jim could be just because he’d had a run-in with him on a bad day. Ryan was full of shit, and he didn’t know as much about Blair as he thought he did, either.

“You’re glaring, Chief.” Jim was moving out of amused now, into something more like concern, because he knew that Blair wasn’t actually glaring at him.

“Sorry, sorry, man.”

“So was this thing with Ryan more serious then?”

And see, this was where Ryan was wrong, wrong, wrong, because Jim did actually have a sensitive side. Looking after the tribe, dealing compassionately with people.

“I would just like to say that I think that you are perfectly agreeable.”

Jim lifted an eyebrow. “Thanks, Sandburg. I try.”

Blair rolled his eyes, at himself as much as Jim. “No, I mean, psychologically speaking. You, wider you, humanity you, can be considered in the light of five main personality traits, we all run a spectrum that will vary according to mood and experience as well as any innate tendency, and you are fine. You can be confrontational on occasion, but overall, you are AOK.” This came out perhaps a little vehement.

“But Ryan disagrees.” Jim smirked. “Guess I made an impression that day in your office.”

“Not your best day, and you have your job to do, you can’t be sweetness and light all the time. You’re okay.” Blair sighed because there was also part two to the argument with his friend. “In addition, according to Ryan, I’m obsessional.”

“Chief…” Jim looked awkwardly like someone trying to break bad news.

“Yeah, I know, but you have to be obsessed with your subject or else how are you going to make it through the post-grad grind? What he meant was that I didn’t agree with him and it all went to shit from there.”

“A casual question here; were you safe to drive home?”

The eye roll this time was very much directed at Jim. “Three beers on top of takeout. I am not that much of a lightweight. I’m just pissed off.”

“Yeah, that part’s coming through loud and clear.” Jim said, a tad uncertainly, “So, no more sleepovers with Ryan for a while, huh?”

“Uh…” was Blair’s highly coherent response. Because there was a tone there. Friendly concern, but also innuendo.

“Sandburg, we’ve had this conversation.”

So they had. “Yeah, true, but knowing that I spend time with the occasional guy as well as the ladies… knowing it’s hypothetical is one thing, knowing that it’s someone specific can be another.”

“Look, I’m a sentinel. I don’t snoop, but I can’t help knowing if something is going to get …specific, because you’re not a subtle guy, and I know what anticipating getting laid looks like on you.” Jim made a small gesture of hands: ‘de nada; ‘no big deal’; ‘I am cool with this’. Blair was left pinned between relief and embarrassment.

“Ah. Okay. So, what does anticipation look like on me?”

Jim shook his head. “I think I said ‘not subtle’. And that’s all you’re getting.” He jabbed a thumb towards the kitchen. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

“Thanks, man. After I finish my tea, maybe.”

“Feel free,” Jim said, and went back to watching the tv.

* * *

Blair later would have liked to attribute it to the twin spirits of the season – there was the slight excess of eggnog at Joel’s Christmas party; and Christmas was all about bringing people together, which was a far better purpose than meaningless consumerism, right?

“I was thinking,” he announced in the truck.

“Is that so,” Jim said, with the wary tone of a man who’d lost the coin toss for designated driver earlier in the evening and wasn’t looking forward to whatever idea his tipsy friend was about to come out with.

“So you’re okay about Ryan and the friends with benefits thing we have going, which is great, friendship is a beautiful thing.” The razor-sharp mind of Blair Sandburg could spot an ambiguity even when buzzed. “By which I mean both my friendship with Ryan and my friendship with you.”

“Yep, we’re all blessed,” Jim said as he pulled away from the curb.

Blair wasn’t so buzzed that he didn’t know what he was about to say was still a risk, but the eggnog had gone down nicely. “If you’re ever open to the idea, I just thought you should know that the offer of a few benefits is available to you too. If you wanted.”

A pause expanded to fill all the available space, before Jim said, “That’s a very gracious offer, Sandburg.”

“It’s a genuine offer.”

“Altruistic even.”

“Not that much,” Blair said evenly. The eggnog was starting to feel unsettled. “There’s something in it for me too, but it’s still a genuine offer.” Jim gave him a sidelong look, assessment with an edge of trapped, but something around his eyes pushed Blair on. “Come on, Jim. Your dating life is a worse disaster than mine. You might have some seniority on me,” - and that was what got him the Ellison glare? – “but you’re not a monk any more than I am. It’s just an offer. If you want it.”

Jim pulled over, and Blair went cold. Surely he hadn’t read Jim that badly? He wasn’t about to be kicked out to walk home, was he?

Jim turned to him. His hand lifted as if he might put it on Blair, his knee, his shoulder, before fluttering back onto the steering wheel.

“Look. There was a time in my life when I might have taken up an offer like that, but I think I’m past the friends with benefits stage, Chief.”

“Okay, that’s okay,” Blair said with affected nonchalance. “It was just-“

“Just an offer,” Jim finished for him. “Blair, I know that my love life has its problems, but that’s how I want it-“ 

Blair raised one eyebrow.

“As in my _love_ life, smartass. Love. Finding someone…”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s beautiful, man. I get it.”

“Okay,” Jim said, and they set off again. The mutual embarrassment drained away with the drive and Blair felt mellow again as they parked outside the loft.

“I worry about you sometimes, that’s all,” Blair said as they crossed the road.

“The feeling is mutual,” Jim said drily, but his arm went around Blair’s shoulders, heavy and warm and comforting against the chilly night air.

“So when were you at a friends with benefits stage in your life?” Blair asked a couple of evenings later.

“None of your damn business,” was the growled response. “Just accept that sometimes the thirst for knowledge isn’t going to be satisfied, and let it go.”

Blair took a breath, and let it go.

* * *

Blair had endured this reaction before now – sometimes the body went ‘whoa! Stop!’ when something dangerous happened, and sometimes the body went ‘whoo-hoo! Go!’ And now he wanted to go-go-go, but where and how was the sixty-four dollar question. Jim was perfectly calm, because of course collaring crime suspects in the middle of a decoration-bedecked mall was another day, another very single dollar in his life, and you’d think it would have gotten that way for Blair too.

Jim was giving Blair the side-eye from the driver’s seat because Blair’s …agitated state must have been embarrassingly obvious. It wasn’t as if Blair popped anything he shouldn’t, but he was restless, and fidgety, and if he could get somewhere private for a little stress relief it would take about thirty seconds flat.

“You okay, there, Chief?”

“Jim. You don’t even need to be a sentinel to figure out that I’m antsy as shit, why are you asking stupid questions?”

“Hey. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s the arrest or the joy of the season that’s got your heart rate up like that.”

“Oh for…! Of course it’s the arrest!”

Because, well, why, Sandburg? And great, now his internal voice sounded way too much like Jim. Blair tried to consider his emotional state in a rational way. He generally coped better with the aftermath of dangerous situations than this. Why was this the time to jitterbug in his seat? God, he hadn’t felt as energized as this since that time he’d used a fire hose to disrupt an armed robbery. He tried to calm down and sound like he wasn’t going insane.

“Sorry, but technically I think it is the season, or rather – look, usually when we reach the stage where you’re firing shots and tackling bad guys,” - and slipping on rainwater puddles where some inconsiderate asshole let their umbrella drip - “there’s usually some lead-up. But this was more of an intrusion on what passes for normal life, hence a more over the top reaction here.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense.” In the Sandburg zone, was the unspoken comment, and Blair loved Jim, really he did, which was increasingly the other part of the problem, but the temptation to smack him one was strong and rising.

They were a few blocks away from the station when Blair said, “Jim, I need to run this off, do something instead of driving both of us crazy in a confined space, so just let me out.”

Jim looked startled, but made that face that said ‘you’re right you are crazy but whatever you say’ and pulled into a loading bay space. Blair bolted, calling back, “Meet you at the station, man,” and started running.

He got more than a few disapproving glances and turned hard right to get off Graves, which was stacked with holiday shoppers who were tricky to dodge at the speed that Blair wanted to hit. Seventh was more office blocks than retail and he got up a good head of speed, then downhill along Horner; he got the crosswalk light at the intersection with Eighth with no break in his stride and a ridiculous sense of triumph about that. There was a final charge up Ninth before he came to a halt about halfway because he’d been _sprinting_ all this way, trying to exhaust that restless, crawling feeling.

He’d thought Jim had been shot when he went down on that puddle of water. He really, really had, and it wasn’t as if Blair liked Feliz Navidad at the best of times; associating it with Jim getting shot would have been the nail in the coffin (yeah sure) for old Jose, yes indeed.

He remembered a friend of his, a fellow TA. She’d lost her father to a sudden heart attack and he’d sat with her while she tearfully sniffled into a tissue and proclaimed that these sorts of things shouldn’t happen just before Christmas, her voice rising into a minor keen on the first syllable. He’d patted her shoulder and agreed it was terrible, even while that detached part of him that could sometimes be an asshole privately noted that life and death went on regardless of whether it was the holiday season. Yes, life went on; you propositioned your friend, your very best friend, and then you had one terrible moment out of lots of terrible moments where you really did think he might be dead, and you realized on a sidewalk on Ninth Street that your ‘friendly’ offer held far more meaning than you’d known.

“Oh man, get a grip,” he told himself out loud, much to his own discomfort and that of the woman wrestling with her packages and the hood of her coat as she walked past. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind had risen with a freezing insistence. Blair broke into a jog, the better to get inside again. He hadn’t shifted his unease, just tired it out some, and now an uncomfortable line of sweat ran down his spine. Jim’s sentinel nose would love that.

Cops weren’t noted for their interior decoration aesthetic, and the haphazard tinsel scattered across ceiling tiles and door frames through the Department gave no lie to that as Blair made his way to the seventh floor. Jim’s desk was notably free of any celebration of the season except for a coffee cup with three striped candy canes in it. They’d be gone by the end of the day; Jim and his occasional sweet tooth. “Hey, Flo-Jo,” Jim said. “Feel better now?”

“Maybe?” Blair said. Merry Christmas, Blair. By the way, you’re in love with Jim Ellison.

“Great. You have a statement to write out, better get on it.” Jim handed the forms over, before putting a small ice pack on the desk. At Blair’s glance, he said, “I hit my knee hard going down. A little ice now is better than later.” And thus life went on.

“Good idea, good idea.” He was eating Jim up with his eyes as if he’d never seen him before; tall, good-looking Jim Ellison with his bright blue eyes, stepping away from his desk with a slight limp, and about to head down to booking to deal with some guy who’d thought armed robbery in a mall crowded with Christmas shoppers was a good idea. Blair lowered his head to the paperwork. _Get_ a grip he told himself for the second time in five minutes and sighed.

* * *

The late afternoon meeting discussing the winter quarter lectures went some way to taking the edge off, by process of the kind of boredom that also paradoxically required deep concentration. Blair made his way home in the deepening dark with the idea that he’d do some lecture prep, some meditation, and worry about the day’s more personal discoveries later.

Blair looked up at the lights shining from the loft windows. Jim was home, watching tv or making himself a meal, and there was a place for Blair up there in the light and comfort. All his gathered calm scattered, and he wanted to be up there immediately, seeing Jim safe all over again. Easily done – into the building, up the stairs, let’s get out the key, through the door, home, and there was Jim, taking a basket of what Blair knew would be immaculately ordered clean laundry up the stairs.

“Hey, Chief.”

“Hey,” Blair said and sat down on the couch to listen with giddy pleasure to Jim putting his things away in his bedroom.

Jim came down. “I left you half that stew if you’re hungry.”

“Yeah, great, great. How’s your knee?”

“I’ll live. I might put some liniment on it later.”

Blair nodded at that. Jim headed for his kitchen – tonight was check the cabinets and the fridge night it seemed, so that Jim could write a list down for the store later in the week - and Blair watched him like he was at the movies. The plot wasn’t much but the cinematography was riveting – Jim in his home, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up to show the strength of his forearms, long fingers grabbing the pen and note pad, width of his shoulders showcased as he opened up doors, ass and long legs displayed as he bent down.

What had Jim said in another context? Not subtle, that was it, and Jim turned and looked at Blair over the kitchen island and said, “What is it with you this evening? Still hyped up from this morning?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Blair said. He stood, thinking that he should eat, but instead he found himself standing in front of Jim, who had enough time to say, “Sandburg?” before Blair put his hands up to cup Jim’s face and draw his head down and kiss him.

He was fully ready for Jim to gently withdraw and push him away, but Jim stayed put. Blair sighed against Jim’s jaw and went in for kiss number two, just as fervent and enthusiastic as the first. This time Jim did pull away, but his hands gripped firmly on Blair’s shoulders and he looked into Blair’s face. Blair kept his own hands where they were, his thumbs tracing the line of Jim’s jaw just under his ears, bone turning to flesh and the pulse under it, back to the strength of the bone, back to the pulse. He felt like he could zone on it if he just had the chance.

“I thought I said that I didn’t need any benefits,” Jim said.

Just say it, Blair thought. But he ducked his head to hide his face and muttered, “I’m not sure that I want to stay friends.”

Jim stayed very still; his fingers dug into Blair’s shoulders and that was fine, completely fine. Let Jim hold on hard, by all means. 

“On the other hand,” Blair said, “given your love life up to now, if this all falls apart, if we _could_ stay friends that would be good.”

“Chief, you want to try talking English to me?”

“I think I might be in love with you?”

Jim nodded slowly, as if Blair had made a lengthy, declarative speech and Jim was just taking it all in, thinking it over. His hands stayed where they were. Blair’s shifted to lie flat-palmed across the top of Jim’s chest, fingers splayed across sweater and collar bone.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Blair said again, “and I would really like to go to bed with you.” Jim stayed silent. ”Come on! How much worse could it be trying this with me than with anyone else?”

“I don’t know if you want the answer to that.”

That was that then; the numbing disappointment was bad enough, so what happened when the shock wore off? Blair took a breath, and told himself that being friends was fine, it had supposedly been all about friendship until about nine a.m. this morning. He tried to push away. He’d planned on some meditation for this evening and right now? The sooner the better; but Jim wouldn’t let go.

“Blair… I just meant – if things go wrong. I can be a son of a bitch sometimes, and the sentinel thing, and …”

“I get it,” Blair breathed. He lifted himself to brush kisses along Jim’s jaw, which was hard set and twitchy, and he sighed and looped one hand around Jim’s neck. “Yeah, it could go wrong. But hey, it could go right too, and we don’t know if we don’t try.”

“And you’d like to try.”

Blair grinned. “I’m a trier,” he said, before dropping his voice into consciously seductive tones, just to see the effect. “Try me, Jim.” The effect was promising - a small catch of breath, an increased intensity to the stare, and then Jim was kissing Blair just as much as Blair was kissing him back.

“You haven’t had any dinner,” Jim said eventually.

“Jim. Jim. I can eat later. The night is young. Can we go upstairs?”

Jim nodded. “Let’s go.” He grinned broadly, and oddly sweet. “Let’s give this thing a try.”

Blair followed him up the stairs to the bedroom, close behind with occasional strokes against Jim’s thigh and hip with the knuckles of a loosely clenched hand. No risk of catching at Jim and making him stumble, but firm enough to not be annoying through the denim of Jim’s jeans. A tease for both of them.

At the top, Jim stripped off his sweater and reached for the edge of his t-shirt under it.

“Hey, what if I wanted to do that?” Blair asked.

“Do you?” The amused, challenging light in Jim’s eyes – that was doing it for Blair, yes it was.

Blair made a show of thinking it over before sitting on the bed and waving his hand like a king giving commands. “Carry on,” he said, and was obeyed, until Jim stood in front of him in just his underwear.

“I figured I’d go for the coup de grace once we were a little more equal here,” Jim said.

Blair got words out on the second try. “Equality is good.” He’d seen this before, Jim wasn’t shy, but this time it was his. His to look at, his to touch, his to kiss, and he could barely keep his hands and mouth off Jim long enough for them to both get Blair undressed.

“Oh, man,” he muttered as Jim laid all that heated, gorgeous length over him. He could put his hands on Jim’s bare ass, and yes, coup de grace indeed – Blair was dead, he was fucking slain, as they fell into a grind of rhythm that was perfectly familiar, and perfectly new, because this time it was Jim.

He came out of the afterglow with a tinge of guilt. Jim looked happy enough, long limbs wrapped around Blair, but still… “That was uh- kind of no-frills. I’m pretty sure I can do better another time? If there’s another time?”

Jim’s big hand pushed a strand of Blair’s hair back. “There could be another time. I thought that was the point of a love life. You can’t really call it a love life if it only happens once, right?” Jim hadn’t said ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m in love with you’ but there was deep fondness in his eyes, and something shy as well. Blair had seen that a few times; it was Jim thinking of letting a few barriers down, something that he’d yearned for academically, and yearned for in an entirely new way now.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, and pressed a quick kiss against the palm of Jim’s hand to seal the deal. At least once more, and one after that, and another, as many as it took. Blair was a trier, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Best Wishes from your Secret Santa, and your mod


End file.
